Confidential medical data belonging to half a million UK citizens has been breached from UK Biobank and put up for sale on a Chinese website, with the Government unable to guarantee individuals cannot be identified. TheMailhas more.
The UK Biobank holds de-identified biological samples and health data of 500,000 volunteers – used to advance cancer, dementia and Parkinson’s care.
But Technology Minister Ian Murray announced today there has been a large-scale data breach which resulted in highly confidential information being leaked.
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The data have been found for sale on three separate listings on the Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba on Monday April 20th.
“At least one of these three datasets appeared to contain data from all 500,000 UK Biobank volunteers,” Murray told the House of Commons.
“Additional listings offer support for applying for legitimate access to UK Biobank or analytical support for researchers who already have access to the data.
“I want to reassure the House up front however, that Biobank has advised that these data did not contain participants, names, addresses, contact details or telephone numbers.”
He added that the Government has today spoken to the vendor and does not believe there were any purchases from the three listings before they were taken down.
But according to reporting by theTimes, Government sources have slammed the Biobank’s security arrangements, labelling them “extremely lax”.
Source: SGT Report
